The current gale of defections of PDP members to the APC just shows you the quality of individuals that the party is made of. When people like BAT stood alone and made Lagos a rallying point for an emerging opposition, after the rout by OBJ, those spineless ones who rushed to the PDP held on for dear life. Today, after withering the storm and building a viable opposition which eventually became the ruling party, they’re now all scampering to join. Shameless folks. I hear three SE senators are on their way too; obviously baited by the opportunity of becoming senate president in the next dispensation. The APC has officially denounced these defections, asking the fortune hunting politicos to remain in their sinking ship.

But, the reality is that no citizen of Nigeria can be prevented from joining any political party…even if the individual switches and decamps quicker than a yoyo changes positions. It is a guiding rule of our political party structure. What needs to happen is internal self-regulation by the APC. They need to guard their image and ensure the mandate given them by Nigerians is not sullied by these cheap tricks from the PDP who have chosen to re-christen themselves as “Politically Displaced Persons”. These ones who should be staying and re-grouping in order to present themselves a strong opposition so as to deepen our democracy by maintaining the checks and balances, have chosen, instead, the path of “alignment”. They cannot bear to exist outside the halls of power and influence.

Buhari made it clear a few days ago when he said “All decampees should know that they are losers who are coming to join winners. They should not expect any patronage or political positions. At best, they may have some influence in their constituencies”. Our ever cerebral BRF completes the matter thus: “You cannot stop sinners from trooping to Church or the Mosque; you just don’t give them the pulpit”.